East Riding and the Yorkshire Wolds
Of the three Yorkshire Ridings, the historic East Riding of Yorkshire has a distinct character of its own. Situated on the northern bank of the Humber this was the original heartland of the kingdom of Deira that merged with Bernicia to the north to form Northumbria, the great Anglo-Saxon kingdom ‘north of the Humber’.
Later still, as with much of Yorkshire, the East Riding became a focus for Viking settlement in the Northumbrian Kingdom of York. Viking settlement is reflected in place-names like Hunmanby near Filey, or Anlaby near Hull as well as in the name of the ‘Riding’ itself, derived from a Norse word for a jurisdiction of three parts.
Viking ships making their way along the Humber to the Ouse and Trent as well as embarking on the Humber shore itself must have once been a common site in this part of Yorkshire. No doubt this was also true of Roman ships heading for York or Brough in earlier times.
This website features five pages covering the historic East Riding of Yorkshire and this present page covers the central areas including the Yorkshire Wolds as well as featuring a brief introduction to the historic county.
A separate page covers the City of Hull and neighbouring River Humber while another focuses on the town of Beverley, the historic capital of the East Riding, including its beautiful Minster. Also covered separately is the East Riding town of Howden, the old capital of Howdenshire, which like Beverley, hosts a prominent minster.
The nearby village of Hemingborough home to another grand church or ‘minster’ is covered on the Howden page too. Surprisingly both Howden and Hemingbrorough, though part of the East Riding, were once historically under the control of Durham.
We include these two places along with the neighbouring abbey town of Selby which together form a close collection of three interesting historic places dominated by prominent churches within a similar landscape. We should say, however, that Selby is situated over on the west side of the Ouse and although close by, was never a part of the East Riding of Yorkshire. Now part of the modern county called ‘North Yorkshire’, Selby historically belonged to the West Riding.
Another separate page covers the East Riding coast along with Holderness, a richly fertile, low-lying area east of the River Hull. Holderness stretches from the shores of the North Sea southward to Spurn Head and the Humber estuary. Our East Riding coastal page begins south of Scarborough and covers Filey, Flamborough Head, Bridlington, Skipsea, Hornsea, Aldbrough, Roos, Easington and Patrington as well as places further inland within the historic Holderness region such as Skirlaugh and Hedon.
East Riding scenery is beautiful yet somewhat modest compared to other parts of Yorkshire. No part of this old county falls within the Pennines or the North Yorkshire Moors. The Yorkshire Wolds that dominate the central area, though occasionally steep in places, are mostly gentle, rolling hills.
The rolling wolds are formed from chalk, that also forms the great coastal cliffs at Flamborough Head, where well-worn, bright white chalk footpaths guide you towards shining white sea cliffs. The wolds and northern coast of the East Riding are the most northerly chalk-lands in Britain. In fact in many places East Yorkshire could easily be called ‘Chalkshire’ so significant is chalk to the scenery.
The Yorkshire Wolds were attractive to ancient man, who preferred to stay clear of what were poorly drained and easily flooded neighbouring vales. Many Bronze Age burials and other earlier finds from the Neolithic age can be seen within the wolds.
People in the East Riding are Yorkshire through-and-through with typical Yorkshire accents and dialects that are blunt, broad and friendly. Yet much of the scenery is not what you would expect from Yorkshire. The wolds and the once marshy, now heavily drained lower-lying parts of the East Riding have their own characteristics. In places you see similarities to parts of England’s south-east coast and it is easy to make comparisons to East Anglia; Lincolnshire or even the Netherlands.
Little towns and villages are often spread far apart within the central arc of the wolds or the lower-lying fenlands to their east and west. The East Riding is generally an area of good agricultural land, although in some of the lower-lying areas, achieving this has involved centuries of management and drainage. The agricultural wealth of the area in the Middle Ages is reflected in some marvellous medieval churches and minsters that served prosperous and populous communities often encouraged by patrons. The great churches at Beverley, Hemingborough, Howden, Hessle, Hedon, Hull Minster, Patrington and Bridlington Priory are prominent examples.
This thriving medieval wealth was especially reflected in the old East Riding county town of Beverley, that was a busy centre of trade for medieval merchants. In 1377, Beverley was the second largest town in the entire North of England after York. Only Newcastle upon Tyne came close and places such as Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield did not yet figure.
Thriving medieval settlements are of course only part of the story in East Yorkshire. Villages were vulnerable to plagues, to Scottish raids or subject to the whim of powerful and sometimes avaricious landlords and the demands of economic viability. Many villages across the Yorkshire Wolds in particular were deserted during the medieval period.
The sites of long-forgotten deserted medieval villages litter the landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds and include Britain’s most famous example of a deserted medieval village, at Wharram Percy. We might also mention that over on the coast several long-forgotten East Riding villages, including their actual sites, have been lost to eternity, long-since claimed and washed away by the sea through the forces of coastal erosion.
On the whole, the old historic borders of the East Riding are natural and easy to define. Historically, the East Riding stretches along the coast from north of Filey and the neighbouring pinnacle headland of Filey Brigg, southward to the cliffs of Flamborough Head. The coast then sweeps along Bridlington Bay into the region of Holderness all the way to the curling spit of land called Spurn Head at the mouth of the Humber.
Along its southern border, the old county boundary follows the Humber shoreline. From Spurn Head and the plains of Sunk Island it marches along the northern bank of the Humber looking out to the Lincolnshire shore to the south. After taking in the East Riding’s only city, the great port of Hull, the River Humber’s border role, further inland, is taken over by the River Ouse. Enclosing the district of ‘Howdenshire‘ this border follows the Ouse northward, passing Hemingborough and Barlby (near Selby) as it heads north to York .
From Stamford Bridge north east of York the old boundary of the East Riding follows the River Derwent upstream into Ryedale, dividing the town of Malton in the North Riding from the East Riding town of Norton. It follows the Derwent further east through the Vale of Pickering until eventually, near a village called Ganton, it waywardly wanders briefly through the poorly drained ‘carrs’ to reach the coast north of Filey to complete the circle.
Beverley to Driffield
We begin our exploration of the north and central parts of the East Riding north of Beverley. Here we find a Ministry of Defence base to the north of the town near the former RAF Leconfield airfield, on the eastern side of Leconfield village. Within Leconfield village we find the thirteenth century church of St Catherine featuring an Anglo-Saxon window.
South west of Leconfield, on private land, are the remains of the moated site of Leconfield Castle; once a home to the powerful Percy family of Northumberland. They were granted a licence to crenellate (build a castle) here in 1308 and several members of this illustrious family received burial in Beverley Minster. Nearby, just to the west, towards the neighbouring village of Cherry Burton is the site of a lost medieval village called Raventhorpe one of many in the East Riding.
North of Leconfield along the A164, heading towards Driffield, are the little villages of Scorborough, Beswick and Watton. Beswick was probably the ‘wick’ (dairy farm) belonging to someone of the name ‘Besi’. Interestingly, Scorborough was not a ‘borough’ at all, as its name derives from ‘Skogar-Booth’ meaning ‘booth built in a wood’. Similarly, Watton is not a ‘ton’ but a ‘dun’ (a term for a hill) and derives from ‘Ueta-Dun’ meaning ‘saturated (wet) hillside’. It was mentioned by the Venerable Bede in the eighth century.
Little villages, within the wolds to the west, include Lockington, Kilnwick, Lund and Bainton. Nearby are North and South Dalton with the village of Middleton-on-the-Wolds in the ‘middle’ between the two. Near South Dalton is Holme-on-the-Wolds, not to be confused with Holme-upon-Spalding-Moor over in the south of the county. North of Bainton, towards Wetwang, is the village of Tibthorpe.
The A164 running north from Beverley to Driffield is followed closely by a railway line to its east. East of the railway, the land forms low-lying ‘carrs’ generally avoided by villages and forming the vale of the River Hull. This river, that begins near Driffield flows south, passing the outskirts of Beverley, heading towards the Humber and the great City of Hull that bears its name.
Just north of Watton, on the A64 and served by a railway station, are the twin villages of Cranswick and Hutton, together forming the parish of Hutton Cranswick. Cranswick is the more southerly of the two places and home to a pub called The White Horse. The village has a substantial green with a pleasant pond.
Cranswick is the larger of the two villages and home to Hutton Cranswick railway station on its east side and an industrial estate to the south-west. Surprisingly, the name Cranswick seems to mean the village of an Anglo-Saxon called ‘Crane’ rather than being the place frequented by a bird of that name. It is the kind of bird you might once have expected to encounter in the neighbouring watery meadows.
Cranes were once common in Britain but extensively hunted and became extinct by the sixteenth century. The Archbishop of York served up 204 of them at a banquet in 1465. The term ‘crane’ was sometimes used for a Heron. If Cranswick was named from a person rather than a bird, then perhaps like the bird, he was skilled at fishing.
Hutton of course means ‘farm or village on the hill’ and is home to the medieval parish church that serves the two villages. Dedicated to St Peter, it is mostly of the thirteenth century, though it includes a part-Norman door with zigzag features.
Along a road called Megginson’s Turnpike to the north east of Hutton Cransiwck is the village of Skerne that takes its name from the Skerne Beck, that would have originally simply been called ‘Skerne’. This Viking river-name means ‘bright one’ and possibly refers to perceived healing or cleansing properties. ‘Skirn’ occurs in some Norwegian river-names and a Norwegian place-name.
Skerne, is also the name of a river tributary of the Tees in the similar watery carr-lands of southeastern County Durham. This particular Skerne is closely associated with the village of Aycliffe and is the river that flows through the centre of the town of Darlington. It has the same meaning as the East Yorkshire Skerne.
Compared to Darlington’s River Skerne, the East Riding’s Skerne Beck is a very minor trickle of a stream. However, it is notable that the village of Skerne lies in an island of land half way between the Skerne Beck and neighbouring River Hull on the banks of which we find nearby Driffield and Wansford to the north. Perhaps ‘Skerne’ was actually an alternative river-name for the upper reaches of the River Hull here.
A little north east of Skerne village and just across the River Hull is the village of Wansford. To its east beyond the neighbouring Frodingham and Kelk Becks are the villages of North Frodingham; Foston-on-the-Wolds; Gembling and Great Kelk, all of which including Foston (despite its ‘Wolds’ designation) are situated in relatively low-lying countryside.
North Frodingham, was named from a people called the ‘Froddings’ by the Anglo-Saxons and they were perhaps descendants of the Froda mentioned in the famed Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. East of North Frodingham, a road heads through the neighbouring village of Beeford to reach the coast at Skipsea in northern Holderness.
Great Kelk, north of Foston has a village-name deriving from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘celc’. Early spellings include ‘Chelc’ and ‘Chelche’. Along with a farm to the north called Little Kelk, this simply means ‘chalk’. Incidentally, this old word also mistakenly gave its name to the Scottish Borders town of Kelso (historically ‘Calchou’, ‘Kelchou’ and ‘Kalchu’) where local limestone was mistaken for chalk.
The earliest spellings for the name of Wansford village suggest it was the ford (across the River Hull) belonging to someone called Wandel. Today the River Hull and adjacent Driffield Canal are crossed by a bridge at Wansford.
Nafferton, a larger village well away from the river to the north of Wansford, means ‘farm belonging to Natfari’. The name Natfari is Old Scandinavian and means ‘night traveller’. Less than two miles west of Wansford and Nafferton we find the town of Driffield.
Driffield
Driffield is situated on a canal also known as ‘the Beck’ that joins the River Hull near the southern edge of the town. The town of Driffield is sometimes alternatively called Great Driffield to distinguish it from the neighbouring diminutive village of Little Driffield just to its west on the Little Driffield Beck.
At first glance the names of these two places would seem to suggest they mean ‘dry field’ from their situation on slightly higher, dryer land above the River Hull. However, early spellings suggest the two places derive their names from an Anglo-Saxon word ‘drif’ meaning ‘stubble’ so Driffield means ‘stubble field’.
Great Driffield, sometimes known as the ‘Capital of the Wolds’ is an agricultural settlement and market town situated close to the point where the River Hull begins. The Hull starts its course in an area called Sunderlandwick to the south west and is formed by several streams in the Yorkshire Wolds. It is partly fed by an acquifer that is linked to a stream called the Gypsey Race to the north. At Driffield, the Hull river is alternatively known as ‘West Beck’.
An eighteenth century canal of 1772 links Great Driffield to more navigable sections of the River Hull slightly further downstream. ‘Riverside’ is the name given to the canal area within Driffield itself and has a particular charm and interest.
South east of Driffield, the River Hull flows southward and is accompanied by the canal in the early part of its journey. After passing through nearby Wansford the river encounters no other towns or villages until it reaches Beverley and Tickton, eight miles to the south and from here it continues south towards the City of Hull.
Great Driffield’s most notable historic feature is its church of All Saints. What we see was mostly built around 1200 though there are eleventh century stones in the tower that date from before the Norman Conquest. The church was restored by the architect, George Gilbert Scott Junior in 1880.
Little Driffield, with its village green, lies a mile west of Great Driffield on the western bank of Little Driffield Beck. This village is reputedly the burial place of Aldred, a king of Northumbria. He died near here in AD 705 fighting in battle against the Vikings.
An Anglo-Saxon monastery is said to have existed sometime during or after Aldred’s reign. Little Driffield’s church, dedicated to St Peter, perhaps located on the monastery site, is primarily a restoration and rebuilding of a medieval church by Temple Moore in 1889 but retains several features of the earlier church, including a Norman tower arch. Fragments of Anglo-Saxon sculpture have been found at this church, including an Anglo-Saxon cross head.
Wetwang to Willy Howe and Thwing
Along the A166 west of Little Driffield, on the road to Stamford Bridge and York we find the villages of Garton-on-the-Wolds and Wetwang. Like the village of Garton-in-Holderness on the East Riding coast, the name of Garton derives from an Anglo-Saxon word ‘gara’ meaning ‘farmstead in or near a triangular piece of land’. The church here is dedicated to St Michael and dates from 1332 when it was established by Kirkham Priory.
Further west from Garton, about five miles from Little Driffield is a village with the rather intriguing name of Wetwang. The word ‘wang’ comes from a Viking word ‘vangr’ meaning ‘field’. Early forms of the village name include ‘Wetwangha’, ‘Wetwanghe’, ‘Wetwange’ and ‘Wetwong’.
At first, the name looks as though it means ‘wet field’ but place-name scholars conclude it was a Viking ‘Vaettvangrr’ meaning ‘field of summons’ where people were summoned for trial or resolve local matters. Fields hereabouts do not seem to have been noted for being particularly wet, although later field drainage, after Viking times may have occurred.
Neat reasoning might suggest that if Wetwang was the ‘wet field’ then Driffield is the ‘dry field’ but traditional explanations of place-names can develop from misunderstandings and misinterpretations of old names that developed when quite different languages were spoken. It is understandable that later inhabitants, forgetting the original meanings simply thought that Wetwang and Driffield were ‘wet and dry’.
Further to the west of Wetwang is Fridaythorpe, another village with a Scandinavian name. It means ‘village belonging to someone called Fridag’ and is the home to a Norman church of around 1190, dedicated to St Mary. North of Fridaythorpe, roads from Wetwang and Garton lead north towards Wharram-le-Street and Sledmere en route towards Malton and Norton.
Heading back to the town of Driffield we now make mention of little wolds villages north of Driffield like Kilham, Langtoft, Thwing, Foxholes and Wold Newton.
Kilham, in a quiet setting derives from ‘Cylnum’ meaning ‘at the kilns’ and is home to the part-Norman church of All Saints. A Roman road passes through this village heading east in the direction of Bridlington. West of Kilham are ancient linear earthworks and a deserted medieval village called Pockthorpe. The ancient earthworks can be traced westward in sections across the wolds for several miles.
More deserted medieval village sites can also be found further west. A lost village called Cottam was located near Langtoft and another to the west called Cowlam was situated near Sledmere. Langtoft mans ‘long toft’ a ‘toft’ being a small piece of land in Scandinavian. Langtoft has a thirteenth century church dedicated to St Peter.
The little village of Thwing, north east of Langtoft has a similar meaning. It derives from an Old Scandinavian word meaning ‘thong’ that could be applied to a strip of leather, cord or shoelace. Here it likely means ‘strip of land’. Thwing’s church of All Saints is mostly nineteenth century with a western tower of 1901 but there are older parts dating back to around 1150.
Half a mile west of Thwing are two more deserted village sites. One was called Octon to the west and the other was Swaythorpe to its south-west. Further west still are more ancient linear earthworks stretching towards Sledmere. North of Thwing, between the villages of Wold Newton and Burton Fleming is an enigmatic ancient mound called Willy Howe, a Neolithic round barrow 24 feet high and 130 feet in diameter with trees now growing from it.
Burton Agnes Hall
East of Kilham as we head towards Bridlington are the villages of Burton Agnes and Rudston. Burton Agnes, on the A166 half way between Driffield and Bridlington, means ‘burh-tun’ a ‘fortified farmstead’. As there are several other places called ‘Burton’ in the East Riding of Yorkshire it needed the additional designation ‘Agnes’ to distinguish it from Burton Fleming, Burton Constable, Brandesburton, Bishop Burton, Cherry Burton, and Burton Pidsea.
There are differing opinions regarding the identity of Agnes from whom Burton Agnes is named. The three candidates all lived in the twelfth century. Some sources claim it was Agnes de Percy, wife of William de Percy of Kildale. Others say it was Agnes de Aumale, the wife of the powerful Yorkshire baron, Adam de Brus (Bruce). A third suggestion is that it was one of the daughters of Roger de Stuteville who built the Norman Manor House at Burton Agnes.
The Percys, Bruces and Stutevilles all had connections to Burton Agnes but the actual ‘Agnes’ designation of the place-name does not seem to have been recorded until 1234.
The Norman and thirteenth century church of St Martin at Burton Agnes is one of many great churches of interest in the East Riding but the real great gems of the village are the Old Hall and Burton Agnes Hall to the east of the church.
The Old Hall was the medieval manor house of Burton Agnes and has an exterior of seventeenth and eighteenth century brickwork that matches the neighbouring Burton Agnes Hall to its east. However, the brick facade of the Old Hall masks a quite remarkable late Norman hall within. This was built by Roger de Stuteville in 1173 and has a ribbed vaulted undercroft of the kind you might expect to find in a Norman cathedral.
In later times the estate of Burton Agnes passed from the de Stuteville family to the de Merlays, then the Somervilles, and then a Staffordshire family of Welsh origin called Griffith.
The new Burton Agnes Hall was built between 1598 and 1610 by Sir Henry Griffith who switched attention away from his midland estates to Burton Agnes after he was appointed to the Council of the North. His Burton Agnes Hall is what we see today and is considered one of England’s best historic houses.
Visitors approach this hall on the north side from the car park but the old main entrance, to the south, features a grand brick gatehouse of 1610 featuring four octagonal turrets with ogee caps and is a remarkable building in its own right.
Much of the house is attributed to the designs of Robert Smythson, a Master Mason to Queen Elizabeth I and his plans for the house still exist. Smythson’s famous works include Longleat in Wiltshire Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire; Wollaton Hall in Nottingham as well as possibly Chastleton House in Oxfordshire and Gawthorpe Hall near Burnley.
Although like any grand historic house, it has been subject to renovations, the alterations have been few, making it a very significant and beautiful surviving Elizabethan home. At the heart of this still lived-in house is a long gallery. Generally, the house features much seventeenth and eighteenth century woodwork, plaster and alabaster.
The exterior of the hall is remembered for its bay windows, brickwork and numerous grand chimneys. Outside, there are lovely grounds featuring a walled garden and woodlands. The hall garden is noted for its varied collection of plants and particularly campanulas.
The Griffith family lost Burton Agnes after supporting the Royalists in the Civil War and the property came into the hands of Sir Matthew Boynton, a former Royalist who switched allegiance to the Parliamentarians. Boynton was commander of Cromwell’s garrison at Hull and Governor of Scarborough Castle.
The Boynton family and later members who assumed the Boynton name through marriage continued as owners of Burton Agnes Hall into the twentieth century. The hall passed through this family line to the Cunliffe-Listers. Still lived in by the family, it is managed by a preservation trust and parts of the house can be visited by the public. The Norman Old Hall to its west can also be visited but is a separate entity and a property of English Heritage.
Along the A166 east of Burton Agnes as we approach the coastal town of Bridlington are the villages of Haisthorpe, Carnaby and on the edge of Bridlington itself is Bessingby. All three are Viking place-names, Carnaby meaning ‘Kerandi’s Farm’. After the Norman Conquest, Carnaby became the place of origin for the surname Carnaby, a family who were later Border Reivers primarily associated with Northumberland.
Rudston, Boynton and Gypsey Race
Slightly over a mile north of Burton Agnes, Haisthorpe and Carnaby is a Roman road heading from Kilham towards Bridlington that is known here as ‘Woldgate’. It crosses a hill called Rudston Beacon where several traces of ancient earthwork entrenchments can be seen along with tumuli and old pits resulting from the excavation of chalk. To the north, on a separate road, is the village of Rudston where the prehistoric connections continue.
Rudston comes from ‘Rood-Stan’, with the first part of its name meaning ‘rood’ (a cross) and the second part meaning ‘stone’. The ‘stone’ is the most remarkable prehistoric feature of Yorkshire’s East Riding, the great megalith called the Rudston Stone and was here about 3,000 years before the place was given the name ‘Rudston’.
The Rudston Stone is the ‘largest’ and tallest standing stone or prehistoric monolith in Britain. Six feet wide and twenty-five and a half feet tall, it is situated within a graveyard alongside Rudston church. It is made from grey sandstone or gritstone from the Cayton Bay area about ten miles to the north near Scarborough.
Over time, weathering has given the stone an ever-more tapered point. In the eighteenth century it was given a protective lead cap to protect against further weathering. In legend it is said to have been thrown there by the devil in an attempt to destroy the church but of course the stone was here long before the church. There is a similar story concerning the Devils Arrows near Boroughbridge
The church of All Saints with its Norman tower of around 1100 was built next to the monolith which had already stood here for likely more than 3,000 years. Its comparison to a ‘rood’ or cross may have been intended to assign Christian symbolism to a pre-Christian site.
Rudston stands at the heart of an area rich in prehistory with nearby features including the Willy Howe barrow near Thwing. There was also Roman activity in the area as the site of a Roman villa has been identified just west of Rudston. Interestingly, Rudston is situated alongside a little, eastward-flowing stream called Gypsey Race that is a particularly fascinating stream and not just for its curious name.
Gypsey Race is a chalk stream that is subject to an aquifer in places and begins fourteen miles west of Rudston as a group of springs in the Duggleby village near Wharram-le-Street. It then flows east, passing the nearby village of Kirby Grindalythe to the north of Sledmere.
Duggleby is the site of Duggleby Howe, an ancient barrow but the village-name is Viking meaning the farm of the Dubghall or ‘black foreigner’ which was an Irish term for a distinct group of Vikings, thought to be the Danes as opposed to the Finghaill (the ‘light foreigners’) who are thought to be Norwegians. Duggleby lies roughly at the centre of the old Wapentake (a Viking administrative division) called Buckrose (meaning Bucki’s Cross) which encompassed the whole north-western part of the East Riding.
Kirby Grindalythe, two miles east of Duggleby, is a Viking name too. ‘Kirby’ is straightforward and means ‘church village’ while Grindalythe means ‘slope’ (lythe) of Grindale. This seems to be the old valley name for this part of the Gypsey Race. Grindale could mean ‘green dale’ but might come from ‘Grimr’, that can be either a personal name or a reference to a demon or devil that often occurs in Viking place-names.
Upon reaching West Lutton, two miles east of Kirby Grindalythe, the Gypsey Race disappears underground and from here onwards it usually runs dry. It is subsumed by the porous underlying rocks of a chalk aquifer. It then ‘magically’ re-emerges at Rudston, ten miles to the east. Perhaps this unusual feature or magical property was a factor in the siting of the ancient Rudston monolith.
In especially wet and saturated conditions Gypsey Race may emerge from the acquifer as a flowing stream, near the village of Wold Newton four miles north west of Rudston, to the north of Thwing. From here in these rare conditions, it flows east, passing the ancient barrow of Willy Howe, heading towards the village of Burton Fleming where it then turns south towards Rudston.
The occasions on which the flooded Gypsey Race emerges at Wold Newton are known as the ‘woe waters’ and are said to signify a bad omen, occurring for example before the Great Plague of 1666. A field near Wold Newton was, incidentally, hit by a meteorite in 1795 and the impact site is marked by a monument.
Between Rudston and Burton Fleming, on the east bank of the rarely-flowing section of the Gypsey Race, we find the long-since ploughed-over site of the prehistoric Argham Henge, also known as the ‘Maiden’s Grave’. It was named after the deserted medieval village of Argham slightly to the east.
The now deserted village had come into being in Viking times some 3,000 years after the henge was constructed. Argham derives its name from the Irish-Norse ‘erg’ and means ‘at the shielings’. It seems to have been completely deserted in or before the fifteenth century when it was given over to sheep grazing.
It is possible that the ancient sites of Duggleby Howe, Willy Howe, Argham Henge and Rudston Monolith all have some kind of relationship to the Gypsey Race.
The ‘race’ part of the ‘Gypsey Race’ name refers to the channel of a stream that intermittently flows with water and then runs dry. The first part of the name is thought to come from a word meaning ‘yawn’ (Old English ‘gips’; Danish ‘gispe’, Swedish ‘gispa’ and Old Norse ‘geispa’), relating to an intermittent and convulsive action and from which the later word ‘gasp’ developed. Gjeispa is the name of a river in Norway.
From Rudston, the Gypsey Race flows eastward in continuous flow passing the village of Boynton and eventually entering the sea at the harbour in Bridlington. Eastward, along the Gypsey Race half way between Rudston and Bridlington, is Boynton village which gave its name to the Boynton family that we have already mentioned.
Early spellings of Boynton include ‘Bouintone’ and it is thought to mean ‘Bofa’s homestead’. Between Boynton and Rudston is another deserted village site, this one being a lost village called Caythorpe.
Boynton itself is home to a fourteenth century church with a tower of stone and a nave of brick. Dedicated to St Andrew, it shows much evidence of later eighteenth century rebuilding.
Close by is Boynton Hall, a private house in private grounds. The house was built by William Strickland who died in 1598 and to whose time the brickwork dates. Several monuments to the Strickland family dating from 1674 to 1735 can be seen in the church.
Burton Fleming and Dickering
Burton Fleming, north of Rudston, is a place that has occasionally succumbed to the flooding of the Gypsey Race. Also alternatively known historically as North Burton it was recorded along with Rudston as a meeting place for the Wapentake of Dickering. ‘Burton’ of course means ‘fortified farmstead’ with Fleming being the name of a family who held the manor in the twelfth century.
The Wapentake of Dickering, like the name of Pickering to the north may be a tribal name. An alternative suggestion is that it comes from ‘dica-hring’ meaning ‘ring of dikes’ referring to the network of ancient earthworks in the area.
Rudston, Burton Fleming and the Gypsey Race were situated at the centre of Dickering wapentake. The Dickering district stretched from Filey and Ganton in the north to Thwing and Langtoft in the west then southward to Wansford, Foston and Gembling and east to include Flamborough, Fraisthorpe and Bridlington.
A little north of Burton Fleming on a minor road heading towards Hunmanby and Filey is Bartindale Farm near the site of a deserted medieval village called Bartindale.
Staying in the wolds further to the north is the Wolds Way long distance footpath and further north still we reach the northern edge of the wolds where they meet the once ill-drained Carrs at the eastern end of the Vale of Pickering.
Part of the old boundary between the East and North Riding of Yorkshire historically passes through these lands. Several villages are strung out along both sides of the carrs. On the North Riding side villages cling to the Tabular Hills at the edge of the North York Moors. Beginning with Cayton and Seamer, just south of Scarborough; they are followed by East Ayton, West Ayton, Hutton Buscel, Wykeham, Brompton, Snainton, Ebberston, Allerston, Wilton and finally Thornton-le-Dale near the town of Pickering.
On the East Riding side west of Hunmaby and Filey are Muston, West Flotmanby, Folkton, Staxton, Willerby and Ganton. Near Ganton the boundary between the East and North Riding of Yorkshire traditionally followed the River Derwent westward from here as it passes through the carrs.
West of Brampton and still on the old East Riding side are Potter Brompton, Sherburn, East Heslerton, West Heslerton, Scampston, Rillington, Scagglethorpe and Settrington. Near Settrington we reach Norton (Norton-on-Derwent), that is separated from the town of Malton just across the River Derwent. Malton and Norton are about nine miles south of Pickering. Despite historically belonging to two different Ridings of Yorkshire, Malton and Norton are almost inseparable and Norton is home to Malton railway station.
The villages along the East Riding side of the carrs between Filey and Norton give their names to neighbouring carrs, brows and wolds. A ‘carr’ (from the old Norse Kiarr) is the rough, waterlogged land north of each village; the ‘brow’ is of course the edge or brow of the hill descending to the carr and the ‘wold’ is the hill itself. Thus we have Folkton Carr, Folkton Brow and Folkton Wold; Sherburn Carr, Sherburn Brow and Sherburn Wold and several other examples.
About three to four miles south of these villages and within the wolds themselves is another string of mostly smaller villages and hamlets stretching west from Burton Fleming, some of which we have already mentioned in connection with the Gypsey Race.
Places here include Wold Newton, Foxholes, Weaverthorpe, Helperthorpe, East Lutton, West Lutton, Kirby Grindalythe, Duggleby, Wharram-le-Street and finally, three miles south-west of Norton, is North Grimston meaning ‘the place of Grim’. North Grimston is what place-name experts might call a ‘Grimston hybrid’ as it combines a Viking personal name (in this case Grimr) with the Anglo-Saxon suffix ton (‘tun’) meaning ‘farm or settlement’.
Sledmere
From North Grimston, roads head south east to Wharram-le-Street or Duggleby and onward to Sledmere. The name of Sledmere is thought to combine an old word ‘sled’ meaning ‘valley’ while ‘mere’ refers to a pool of some kind. However, this village was moved in the eighteenth century and what we see today is effectively the estate village for Sledmere Hall.
Sledmere Hall was built in 1751 for Richard Sykes. The Sykes family originated in Cumberland but relocated to Leeds in the early seventeenth century. They became successful wool merchants and then later merchants in Hull where they exported cloth and imported pig iron. One of their number, a Sir Richard Sykes (died 1761) married Mary Kirby, heiress to the Sledmere estate. Like the Sykes family, the Kirbys were wealthy Hull merchants.
The house was extended in the 1780s and the grounds were subsequently expanded too. The whole village was moved to a new nearby location to accommodate the development. The work on the house and gardens was personally undertaken by Sir Christopher Sykes who consulted the architect Samuel Wyatt and the Northumbrian-born landscape designer ‘Capability’ Brown.
In 1911 the house suffered from a devastating fire and although its exterior walls remained standing, the interior was completely destroyed. Thankfully, most of the contents were saved through the collective swift-acting organisation of estate workers and the people in the village. The interior was subsequently rebuilt using the original surviving plans.
Sledmere is still a home to the Sykes family and open to the public through guided tours. The grounds include a walled garden, circular walks, a rare breeds farm and historic stable blocks that are a visitor centre for the Shire Horse Society. In addition to the hall there are a number of notable monuments connected to the Sykes family.
The monuments include a replica of the medieval Eleanor Cross of Hardingstone (1291) in Northamptonshire. The copy was built as a folly in 1898 by Temple Moore for Sir Tatton Sykes, the 5th Baronet. Brasses were later added to panels at the base of the cross by the 6th Baronet, Sir Mark Sykes in 1918, primarily as a memorial to officers from a a battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment who had fallen in the First World War. Another memorial known as the ‘Wagoners Memorial’ commemorates the fallen of the Wolds Wagoners Reserve, a company raised by Sir Mark from local men.
Alongside the main road through the village is the monument to Sir Christopher Sykes. This is a domed rotunda of 1840 featuring Tuscan columns. East of the village is Sledmere Castle, a cottage folly built by John Carr for Sir Christopher Sykes, the Second Baronet. It features two castellated turrets.
The grandest of the monuments associated with the Sykes family is, however, the Sledmere Monument, situated two-and-a-half miles to the south east of the village along the road towards Garton-in-the-Wolds, half way towards Driffield. Also called the Sir Tatton Sykes Memorial Tower, this 120 feet high Gothic monument was built in 1865 as a memorial to the 4th baronet by his friends.
Wharram Percy
Wharram-le-Street, to the west of Sledmere, is named from its location on the Roman Road (the street) leading from Malton to Wetwang. ‘Le-Street’ was added to the name to distinguish it from the neighbouring Wharram Percy. The church at Wharram-le-Street, dedicated to St Mary, is a very old one with an Anglo-Saxon nave and a tower of the later Anglo-Saxon and Norman period. Norman columns have been added to the Saxon nave.
The name Wharram is thought to derive from an Old Scandinavian word ‘Hvarf’ referring to a ‘bending nook and corner’ and applies to both Wharram-le-Street and nearby Wharram Percy.
Wharram Percy to the south of Wharram-le-Street, is the most famous, best preserved and most extensively investigated deserted medieval village in England. It is in the care of English Heritage. Situated in the beautiful wolds countryside it can be visited for free though this involves a lovely 500 metre descending walk along a prehistoric trackway to reach the site.
The area was occupied in prehistoric times but the village came into being during the Anglo-Saxon period. At the time of the Norman Conquest its principal owners were called Carli and Lagmann with smaller plots of land falling under the ownership of someone called Ketilbjorn.
After the Conquest it was given to a minor branch of the Percy family who also owned land at Bolton Percy between Cawood and Tadcaster. In 1315, when there was no Percy male heir to the lands of Wharram Percy it passed through marriage to the Heslerton family. The Wharram Percy area suffered from Scottish raids in the 1320s and evidence shows there was an economic downturn in the village with only a third of the land subsequently under cultivation.
Like many places, Wharram Percy suffered from the ravages of the Black Death in the 1340s which further exasperated things, resulting in a reduction in population. The Black Death claimed the life of Wharram Percy’s landlord, Walter Heslerton. As his son was only a minor, the crown took control of the village for its own profit and purposes but the village still lived on.
In the 1360s the manor of Wharram Percy passed to another branch of the Percy family, the Percys of Spofforth Castle (between Harrogate and Wetherby). However, around 1403, they sold Wharram Percy to the Hilton family of Hylton Castle near Sunderland in exchange for lands owned by the Hiltons at Shilbottle in Northumberland.
The new landlords, were largely absent and they brought about the final demise of Wharram Percy as a village. Baron William Hilton, Wharram Percy’s new owner decided to focus on the more profitable production of wool and set about converting the arable land of the village to grazing land for sheep. Some villagers likely moved away of their own accord but the changes inevitably involved the eviction of villagers from their properties to reclaim land for grazing.
Between 1488 and 1500 the last four families were evicted from the village and the only remaining plots of arable land were given over to pasture in 1527. In 1573 Wharram Percy was sold by the Hiltons to the Middleton family whose successors still own the land.
Wharram Percy served as a village for around 600 years and was a home to around 40 houses with a population at the height of its humble prosperity being around 200.
Traces of the now grassed-over foundations of numerous cottages can be seen within the deserted village site which was also once the home to two mills and a millpond. Archaeologists and volunteers headed by Maurice Beresford and John Hurst extensively studied the site between 1950 and 1990.
Outlines of cottages and plots of lands called tofts and crofts can be seen and the foundations of buried chalk walls may be traced. There were two main streets and a number of minor interconnecting streets and lanes. One of the main streets was focused in the valley where we find the church and later ‘improvement farm’ but this street climbed a bank to reach another main street on the adjoining plateau where most of the traces of the village buildings can be seen.
Situated on this plateau was the bulk of the village, including two manor houses associated with the Percy family, that were the most prominent houses in the village. The South Manor was the original manor and in use from 1166 to 1254 when it was superseded by a new manor, the North Manor which was in use from 1254 to around 1406.
The village church of Wharram Percy, though in ruin, can still be seen. Dedicated to St Martin, it served the village and its wider parish that included a number of local farms and neighbouring hamlet of Thixendale. The church is mostly twelfth century Norman but the tower is of the eleventh century. The north arcade of the church is thirteenth century but within the Norman nave are traces of an earlier and shorter Anglo-Saxon nave.
The medieval churchyard was excavated and included the discovery of around 700 skeletons, including one eleventh century male skeleton whose skull had been subjected to a severe injury from a blow by a blunt implement of some kind. However, this individual did not die from the injury as the evidence shows that part of the bone exerting pressure on his brain was cut away through some form of medieval surgery. He lived for several years after his injury.
Following the desertion of the village, the church continued to serve the surrounding parish for some time but had long since fallen into ruin by the time the parish was finally abolished in 1935.
As well as the church, the village was home to a farmhouse which was replaced in the 1770s by an ‘improvement farm’ when the then landlord, Sir Christopher Buck, set about the improvement of the land with the reintroduction of some arable plots of land. The building, which was subject to some later rebuilding included labourer’s cottages in its southern range that were occupied until as recently as 1976.
The Yorkshire Wolds west and south west of Wharram Percy, stretch out towards the River Derwent and take on a particularly rolling form in places, with roads sometimes making relatively steep climbs. Places in this area include Burdale, Aldro, Thixendale, Leavening, Burythorpe, Uncleby and Kirby Underdale.
Kirkham Priory and the Derwent
Westward, beyond a village called Westow, we reach the east bank of the River Derwent where the river flows southwards from Malton and Norton. Heading in the direction of Stamford Bridge the river cuts through neighbouring hills with the Wolds to its east and Howardian Hills to the west. Though situated on the east bank of the Derwent (in the old East Riding), the priory is included within the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding National Beauty
Kirkham Priory was founded by Walter l’ Espec around 1125 for Augustinian canons with support from Thurstan, the Archbishop of York. Built on the site of an earlier church that was replaced around 1150, its first prior was Walter l’ Espec’s, uncle who had previously been prior at Nostell Priory near Wakefield.
Walter l’ Espec was also founder of the great abbey of Rievaulx in Ryedale, in 1132. This abbey was Cistercian rather than Augustinian. Plans were made to convert Kirkham to the Cistercian order, with Walter’s support but it never materialised. Kirkham’s Prior at that time was a man called Waltheof (or Waldef), a son of the Earl of Northampton who was seemingly favourable to the Cistercian way of life.
A former canon at Nostell, Waltheof had entered the church as a young man and progressed to become Prior at Kirkham by the late 1130s. Waltheof was a stepson, (through his mother, Maud the Countess of Huntingdon) of King David I of Scotland. In addition he was the grandson of Waltheof, the Earl of Northumbria executed by William the Conqueror in 1075 and a great grandson of Siward, the famed Anglo-Danish Earl of Northumbria.
When Archbishop Thurstan died in 1140, Waltheof was seen as a prime candidate to become Archbishop of York but was perhaps too closely connected to King David. The appointment instead went to William FitzHerbert (later canonised as St William of York).
Waltheof was destined for sainthood too. In 1143 he became a Cistercian monk at Wardon in Bedfordshire (a daughter monastery of Rievaulx) and then relocated to Rievaulx itself. In 1148 he was elected to become the second abbot of Scotland’s first Cistercian abbey at Melrose. He was Abbot of Melrose until his death in 1159 after which a cult developed around his name that brought pilgrims to Melrose. He was venerated as a saint – St Waltheof of Melrose.
The River Derwent at Kirkham Priory forms a pretty valley. It is crossed by a lovely three-arched stone bridge of 1806 by John Carr of York. Kirkham is on the east bank of the river in what was the East Riding. Further north, on the west bank of the river in what was the North Riding, are Huttons Ambo and Crambeck village, from where roads lead north west towards Castle Howard.
Crossing the stone bridge over the Derwent from the abbey takes us across the neighbouring York to Scarborough railway line and then up the bank of a wooded hill to the village of Whitwell-on-the-Hill. South of Whitwell and still in the old North Riding is Crambe village that like Crambeck derives from an old word meaning ‘bend in the river’ named from the twists and turns of the River Derwent here.
Further south on the old East Riding side of the Derwent are the villages of Howsham and Scrayingham and on the western bank another ‘crambe’ name, the village of Buttercrambe. The ‘butter’ element is a reference to rich agricultural land. On the eastern side of the Derwent along the Skirpen Beck is the village of Skirpenbeck on a road to Bugthorpe, Kirby Underdale and Uncleby in the Wolds. Further south, along the Derwent itself, we reach Stamford Bridge.
Stamford Bridge
Stamford Bridge village stands on the historic East Riding bank of the River Derwent about six miles south of Kirkham Priory and six miles north east of York. This village was the site of one of the most important battles in English history, a battle that signified the end of two-hundred years of Viking domination in Yorkshire and the North.
The battle took place on September 25, in 1066, a year that would prove to be a major turning point year in British history. In that year Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, had been attacking the coast of Northumberland and was planning an invasion of Yorkshire.
At the same time, Tostig, the exiled brother of the English King Harold, also planned to invade the north. Tostig’s army included reinforcements from Scotland but failed in its invasion attempt. He joined forces with the greater raiding fleet of Hardrada at the mouth of the Tyne. It may have been a pre-arranged meeting.
Hardrada’s men harried the Cleveland coast and Scarborough before entering the Humber with Tostig in support. They sailed along the Humber and River Ouse before landing at Riccall half way between Selby and York. From there they headed north to York.
On September 20, 1066, the Norwegians under Hardrada defeated the nobles Morcar, the Earl of York (who virtually ruled Yorkshire) as well as his brother Edwin, Earl of Mercia in a great battle at Gate Fulford on the outskirts of the city.
Following his victory, the York citizens gave support to the Norwegian King, perhaps not too unwillingly considering York’s Viking roots. Morcar, their leader had been an outsider from Mercia appointed to the post by Osulf of Bamburgh who ruled Northumberland north of the Tees.
By September 25, 1066 the Norwegian King Hardrada was encamped at Stamford Bridge where his army was taken by surprise by an English army led by Harold Godwinson, the Saxon King of England who had marched all the way from Sussex.
The two opposing sides faced each other on either side of the bridge at Stamford Bridge with the Vikings on the west bank of the Derwent. At first the Vikings had the upper hand when a giant of a Viking, a ‘berserker’, high on Bog Myrtle cut down 40 Saxons with his axe. It is said this man delayed the battle for several hours.
One of Godwinson’s men, unnoticed, then made his way beneath the wooden bridge, apparently by floating down the river in a tub. Once under the bridge, he thrust his spear with careful aim through the latches of what was then a wooden bridge straight into the Berserker, killing him instantly.
The Norwegians suffered a heavy defeat. Hardrada was killed by an arrow through the throat. Tostig also lost his life. Soon after victory, King Harold Godwinson learned of the invasion of William of Normandy and his Norman forces in Sussex. Godwinson had to march his exhausted troops south to deal with this new invading force at the Battle of Hastings, but that, as they say, is another story.
There has been a bridge at Stamford Bridge since Roman times but the present rather narrow arched bridge of stone dates from 1727 and was built by William Etty.
Stamford Bridge’s other notable bridge is a disused viaduct of 1847 that also crosses the River Derwent nearby. It originally transported a railway from York to Beverley but is now part of a cycle route. The most notable building in Stamford Bridge is the old corn mill which is said to date in parts to the sixteenth century but in truth it is mostly Victorian. It now houses a neat collection of apartments.
To the south-east of Stamford Bridge, the scenery is low-lying forming part of the vale of the River Derwent. Here we find villages called Bugthorpe, Fangfoss and Wilberfoss. The ‘foss’ in these place-names seems to refer to a stream that has been dredged to improve drainage. A stream passes through Wilberfoss called the Foss Beck on its way to join the Derwent and upstream near Fangfoss it is called Spittal Beck.
It is perhaps more likely that the name refers to the oft-changed course of the River Derwent itself a little less than a mile west of the village. Just south of Wilberfoss are the villages of Newton-upon-Derwent and Sutton-upon-Derwent. Fangfoss is thought to mean ‘ditch belonging to Fangulf’ while Wilberfoss means ‘Wilburg’s Ditch’, Wilburg being a woman’s, name. The little village of Full Sutton between Stamford Bridge and Fangfoss is home to Full Sutton Prison.
Slightly north east of Fangfoss is the village of Bishop Wilton on the edge of some steeply rising parts of the Yorkshire Wolds. The neighbouring Bishop Wilton Wold is the highest point in the Yorkshire Wolds even though it only rises to a modest 813 feet at a point called Garrownby Hill. To the south east of Fangfoss and like Bishop Wilton, also on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, is the market town of Pocklington.
Pocklington
Pocklington means ‘Farm of Pocela’. By tradition it is said to be one of the places at which Paulinus, the Roman missionary to Edwin, the King of Northumbria, preached and performed mass in AD 627.
Pocklington’s most historic building is its thirteenth century church, dedicated to All Saints. An inscription on a buried cross discovered in the churchyard in the 1830s with the words ‘Paulinus hic praedicavit et celebravit’ is thought to confirm the tradition that Paulinus preached at Pocklington, although it does not date from Anglo-Saxon times. One view is that it may be a medieval replacement for an earlier Anglo-Saxon preaching cross.
It is also claimed that an Anglo-Saxon coin discovered by a metal detectorist at Pocklington in 2007 is connected to Paulinus’ time as Bishop of York under King Edwin.
Pocklington’s old grammar school has a history dating back to 1514 and was once attended by William Wilberforce, who later became the famed MP for Hull, renowned for his legislation that brought slavery to an end. William’s ancestors came from the village of Wilberfoss to the west of Pocklington on the road to York.
Pocklington, along with Market Weighton to the south east, are the two main towns in this south western area of the East Riding’s Yorkshire Wolds in the area between Beverley and York.
Old streets and lanes at the heart of the town of Pocklington include Market Street, Church Lane, Kirkgate, Pavement and Chapmangate. Pavement is an unusual old street-name that also occurs at York and at Nottingham. Another interesting street-name is the road entering the town from the south from Market Weighton called ‘The Balk’.
Chapmangate is home to quite striking Methodist Chapels, one of which is now a Christian Fellowship. The building bears the date ‘1879’. The other is Pocklington Methodist Chapel dating from 1864. It is built of brick with a large stone entrance portico supported by stone columns.
Pocklington Arts Centre in the Market Place, occupies a building of 1690 that served as a doctor’s house and much later as a cinema called ‘the Ritz’. The Arts Centre opened in the year 2000.
In the wolds, to the east of Pocklington, are the villages of Millington, Kilnwick Percy and Warter and to their south is Nunburnholme. Further to the north-east towards Wetwang is Huggate. Warter is a pretty village with an attractive row of thatched cottages. Old spellings of the village-name Warter suggest it could be the ‘felon tree’ (from an old word ‘wearg’ meaning ‘felon’) so it would have presumably been used as a gallows. It might alternatively mean ‘gnarled tree’.
Warter was once the site of an Augustinian priory situated to the north of the village and founded in 1132 but there are no traces remaining. Nunburnholme was the site of a priory of Benedictine nuns, founded about 1150, but again no traces of this remain.
Market Weighton
The A1079 follows a Roman road from York near the southern edge of Pocklington linking York to Brough on Humber and passing close to Wilberfoss and the village of Barmby Moor just west of Pocklington.
The road heads through the villages of Hayton, Thorpe-le-Street and Shiptonthorpe before reaching the town of Market Weighton. It then heads onward, southward to Sancton, North and South Newbald and South Cave before reaching what was once a Roman fort and ferry site at Brough to the west of Hull.
Market Weighton is, as its name suggests, a market town and like Pocklington is situated near the edge of the Wolds between Beverley and York with the Roman Road from York passing through. Early spellings of the ‘Weighton’ part of the name show that it was ‘wic-tun’ meaning ‘dwelling place’ although there is a suggestion that it might refer to the site of a Roman ‘vicus’ or civilian settlement, though this would be unusual.
The town is known as Market Weighton to distinguish it from the village of Little Weighton about seven miles south east of Market Weighton, near Hull and Beverley.
Market Weighton church is dedicated to All Saints and consists of a Norman nave and a thirteenth century western tower. The churchyard here is the burial place of a ‘giant’ called Wiiliam Bradley who died in 1820. He was eight foot tall and weighed 27 stones.
Goodmanham and Londesborough
The Market Weighton and Pocklington areas are thought to have been one of the first areas of Northern England to be colonised by the Anglo-Saxons who came from what is now Denmark and Germany (the Angles came from Angulus in southern Jutland).
The Anglo-Saxons established the Kingdom of Deira on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds and this kingdom gradually spread north and west, ultimately merging with the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Bernicia north of the Tees to form the Kingdom of Northumbria.
Deira possibly took its name from the River Derwent valley which lies on the northern and western outskirts of the East Yorkshire region. It seems to have developed from an earlier Brythonic or Celtic region called Deifr or Dewy possibly meaning ‘region of many waters’. The word ‘dwfr’ in Welsh means ‘water’.
In Anglo-Saxon times Bede described the monastery at Beverley as ‘in Deira Wood’ (Inderwuda) a wood that was also called Deirewald. The word ‘wald’ relates to the Anglo-Saxon ‘weald’ meaning high forest land and this name seems to have given rise to the name of the wolds which were once heavily wooded.
In fact the name Deira occurs in old records with a wide variety of spellings with ‘Daera’, ‘Deora’, ‘Deiri’ being a few examples. It is also recorded as ‘Deirorum provincia’ and ‘Dearnerice’ (‘rice’ meaning ‘kingdom). Although Deira originally referred to a relatively small area in what is now East Yorkshire, it expanded to take in the old Roman city of York and much of Yorkshire and probably lands west of the Pennines too.
Deira’s ultimate northern boundary is usually considered to be the River Tees but in truth its exact boundaries like that of Bernicia are unknown and may have expanded and contracted at various times. There is little doubt, however, that the original Deira heartland was in the Yorkshire Wolds. The medieval church of All Saints at Goodmanham, just north of Market Weighton, is thought to stand on the site of the principal pagan temple of Anglo-Saxon Deira in the early part of its history.
In the Easter of AD 627 Edwin of Deira, the King of all Northumbria was converted to Christianity by a Roman missionary called St Paulinus. The conversion and baptism took place at a church called St Peter’s in York at a location that would become the site for York Minster.
Coifi, the Pagan high priest of Deira followed Edwin’s example and also converted to Christianity. To demonstrate his new faith Coifi destroyed the great heathen temple at Goodmanham, borrowing Edwin’s arms and horse to destroy the site.
King Edwin is said to have owned a summer palace somewhere in the Wolds area from where Coifi rode out to destroy the pagan shrine at Goodmanham (it means the ‘home of Godmand’). It is known that in the year AD 626, a year before his conversion to Christianity, there was an attempt to assassinate Edwin at his palace.
Eumer, an agent of the King of the West Saxons attempted to assassinate King Edwin while he was celebrating the Pagan festival of Easter. The assassin entered the King’s court and asked to speak with the king on the pretence of having an important message from the West Saxon King.
On seeing the king, Eumer produced a poisoned dagger from beneath his cloak with which he attempted to stab Edwin. Fortunately for the king, one of Edwin’s men called Lillam jumped in the way and suffered a blow from which he was killed.
A fight followed in which Edwin was injured but Eumer was eventually put to death. On the same night of the assassination attempt, King Edwin’s queen, Ethelburga is said to have given birth.
The actual site of Edwin’s palace is unknown, the two possible locations being at Sancton to the south of Market Weighton, where a large Anglo-Saxon cemetery has been found or at Londesborough to the north of Market Weighton about a mile and a half from Goodmanham.
Whatever its location, this wasn’t the only palace connected with King Edwin. Another palace called Ad Gefrin at Yeavering in Northumberland, in what was the Bernician part of Northumbria was an extensive complex of buildings that can be identified from aerial photographs. It includes the outline of a raked auditorium from which perhaps the king addressed the nobles or from which poems and stories were recited.
Londesborough, a mile and a half north west of Goodmanham is a prominent ‘burgh’ place-name (a fortified manor) in this early Deiran heartland and that may be of significance. The present church is Norman and dedicated to All Saints. An eleventh century Anglo-Danish cross head pre-dating the Norman Conquest with decorative interlace features above the south door of the church but of course that is from long after the time of King Edwin.
Londesborough Hall was the site of an Elizabethan house, the seat of the Earls of Burlington, possibly built on the site of an earlier manor but was demolished in 1819 and replaced by the present Londesborough Hall. Materials from the demolition were used to build a new range at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. Perhaps the hall was on the palace site.
In AD 634 the palace of King Edwin, wherever its location may have been, be it Londsesborough, Sancton or somewhere else, was destroyed by the Welsh King, Cadwallon of Gwynedd. It may later have been replaced by a new palace at Newbald to the south of Sancton as Newbald means ‘new building’.
Newbald formed a large estate in later medieval times and this may could have been associated with the site of the palace. The name Sancton incidentally could be interpreted as meaning something along the lines of ‘holy place’ but the earliest spellings point to it being ‘Sand-tun’, meaning ‘Sand Farm’.
The presence of the Roman road in this area running north from the Borough and the Humber through North and South Newbald and Sancton may have been a significant feature in the early colonisation and development of Deira.
The establishment of the Kingdom of Deira likely developed from an earlier kingdom or region of pre-Anglo-Saxon times that was located here, perhaps tracing its origins back to the Iron Age tribe the Romans called the Parisi. The tribal area of the Parisi seems to have encompassed an area that closely corresponds to the early heartland of the Kingdom of Deira, in what would become the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Road to the Humber
Following the old Roman road (A1034) south from North and South Newbald we pass the village of South Cave with the village of North Cave further away from the road to its north east. Surprisingly, these two place-names have nothing to do with an actual cave but derive from a forgotten river or stream-name. One suggestion is that it comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘cafa’ meaning ‘swift-flowing’.
Slightly to the east is the village of Brantingham, thought to mean homestead of the ‘steep-slope dwellers’ deriving from an another Anglo-Saxon word ‘brant’ meaning ‘steep’. Here, the edge of the wolds descend towards the flat land of the Humber estuary.
Nearby, we find the villages of Ellerker and Elloughton. The second of these has merged with the town of Brough. Ellerker means Alder Carr – ‘the carr land where alder trees grow’. Early spellings of Elloughton suggest it could be either ‘farm of Helgi’, (a Scandinavian name) or may derive from ‘Elgr’ meaning ‘heathen temple’. Brough simply means ‘fortified place’, likely a reference to it being the site of a Roman fort. From here we can head east to North Ferriby and onward to Hessle then continue east into the City of Hull or cross the Humber Bridge into Lincolnshire.
Alternatively, heading west along the A63 takes us past Ellerker and South Cave into what was once called Howdenshire, a low-lying part of the East Riding that once belonged to the Bishops of Durham. Here, ignoring the turn-off for the M62, we encounter a village called Newport situated on the Market Weighton Canal that joins the Humber to the south. This village though once ‘newly’ founded on reclaimed fenland is in fact first mentioned as early as 1368.
Further to the west is Gilberdyke, possibly a reference (but by no means certain) to a Humber connected ditch or stream belonging to a medieval Durham family called the le Halsarts, several of whom were called Gilbert. Continuing west we reach the town of Howden itself, the home to Howden Minster and home to the former Manor House or palace of the Bishops of Durham.
From here we head back north east in the direction of Market Weighton and follow the A614 north east, crossing a stream called the Commonend Drain that was historically called the Bishopsoil Drain at a site called Yokegate on the edge of what was Howdenshire. The name ‘Bishopsoil’ recalled the ownership of the Liberty of Howdenshire by the Bishops of Durham. It means ‘the Bishop’s Soil’.
Holme-on-Spalding-Moor
Heading north east from Howden in the East Riding’s former Liberty of Howdenshire we leave Howdenshire and the ‘Bishop’s Soil’ behind and enter an area that was formerly called the Wapentake of Harthill Holme with the village of Holme-on-Spalding Moor at its centre.
There were four Wapentakes called ‘Harthill’ in the East Riding of Yorkshire which were four later divisions of one wapentake called Harthill. The location of the place called Harthill from which the Wapentake was named is unknown. Historically recorded as ‘Hertl’ evidence suggests it was somewhere in the area stretching from Market Weighton to Pocklington, perhaps at Everingham or Thorpe-le-Street to the north of Holme-on-Spalding Moor.
Of the other three divisions, a Harthill Hunsley Wapentake existed in the Hull and Beverley areas, stretching from Leconfield in the north to Hessle in the south. Harthill Wilton stretched from Stamford Bridge to Burnby and Pocklington, while Harthill Bainton at the centre of the East Riding included parishes such as Hutton Cranswick, Warter, Bainton and Lockington.
Holme-on-Spalding Moor is situated seven miles north east of Howden and is less than four miles south west of Market Weighton. It gave its name to the Harthill Holme Wapentake which included the parishes of Market Weighton, Londesborough and Goodmanham to the east and stretched west to the River Derwent. Holme-on-Spalding Moor at the heart of this wapentake is the largest parish by area in the historic East Riding of Yorkshire.
Holme can mean ‘island’ or ‘water meadow’ and likely refers to the high ground on which the village church is situated surrounded by land that was historically poorly drained. The designation ‘on-Spalding-Moor’ in the lengthy name of this village is to distinguish it from Holme-on-the-Wolds near the centre of the county.
The name of Spalding Moor and the village of Spaldington between Howden and Holme derive from the tribal name of the Spaldingas who may be an offshoot of a tribe of this name in Lincolnshire who are listed in a record of tribes in Anglo-Saxon times called the Tribal Hidage.
Spalding Moor was a vast tract of land in this area of East Yorkshire, much of which was partly occupied by Holme Common, an area of land that was not properly drained until the creation of the Market Weighton Canal in the late eighteenth century.
In World War Two Holme-on-Spalding Moor became the home of an RAF bomber station known as RAF Holme that briefly formed a US Air Force Station during the Cold War in the 1950s before it was returned to the RAF in 1957. It was situated in the Tollingham Farm area to the south-east of the village.
The church of All Saints at Holme-on-Spalding Moor is superbly situated on a commanding if somewhat isolated hill-top called Church Hill to the east of the village with excellent views from the churchyard looking west. The church dates from the thirteenth and fourteenth century.
From the church the view stretches for many miles with Drax Power Station in the distance while close by on the edge of the village you can see the nine-bay early Georgian house called Holme Hall. It was built to designs for Lord Langdale by the architect William Wakefield in 1720-30 and is a house of nine bays.
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